As wildfires continue to grow in severity, how are scientists thinking about prevention?

Fuels reduction, which includes tools like prescribed fires and thinning, can help maintain a healthy forest. As wildfires grow more severe, scientists and experts continue to explore what should be done to protect fragile ecosystems. Freelance writer and editor Emily Shepherd dug into these issues for High Country News. She joins us with more on what methods can help preserve forests.

The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer:

Dave Miller:  This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Does thinning work for wildfire protection? That’s the headline of a recent article in High Country News. It aims to cut through some of the confusion and misinformation about both thinning and prescribed burns in our age of ever more severe wildfires. Emily Shepherd is the freelance writer who wrote the article and joins us now to talk about it. Emily, welcome.

Emily Shepherd:  Hi Dave. Thanks for having me.

Miller:  Thanks for joining us. You started your article with the description of just how much Western forests have changed since European arrival and I think that’s a good place for us to start today. What were they like before arrival?

Shepherd:  Well, that’s the subject of a lot of study, but most research suggests that Western forests in particular had, first of all, a lot of diversity. A “quilt work” is the word that’s used a lot. So a diversity of different types of sub-ecosystem types, varying densities, varying species, assemblages.

But one thing that’s pretty consistent through this research is that lots of forests had fewer trees, large trees, very old trees, dominating sometimes even savanna-like landscapes. So one thing that we’ve seen happen since European arrival is a homogenization, as well as an increase in the amount of woody material in the understory, particularly.

Miller:  And how have those changes since that made severe wildfires more common and more likely?

Shepherd:  There’s two main factors in terms of the forest structure. There’s the amount of fuel, amount of woody material, living in the forests and the way that it’s structured. So lots of research suggests that due to a long history of grazing, and then the effects of logging, and then the effects of fire exclusion in the 20th century - so a history that goes back hundreds of years - the long term ramifications of all these factors have produced more living woody material in our forests than was probably historical.

And then the second thing is the literal shape of this woody material. It’s called ladder fuels. So these fuels connect the ground, where a lot of wildfire starts, to the crown where most trees are most susceptible to dying, in a literal ladder. So historically, there were probably far fewer instances where a fire could travel from the ground to a treetop, especially in forests that are adapted to wildfire. Today, it’s almost the exception to find an area in Western forests where you don’t see a place where fire could travel from the ground to the crown.

Miller:  This gets us to the central focus of your recent article. The phrase ‘fuels reduction’ or ‘fuel reduction’ gets thrown around a lot. What does it mean?

Shepherd:  Fuels reduction is an umbrella term that encompasses two main strategies for reducing the amount of fuel in Western forests and that includes thinning as well as prescribed burning.

Miller:  So let’s take these one at a time. What do you see as the biggest misconceptions about thinning?

Shepherd:  I would say the biggest misconception about thinning is that it’s the same thing as logging. Logging is normally a for-profit enterprise that takes out the biggest and most accessible trees. Thinning refers to taking out these smaller younger trees that are creating this fuel block in the understory and that mostly can make up these latter fuels.

Miller:  And is there just not much of a market even now for the diameter of logs that are likely to be cut in a thinning operation?

Shepherd:  My knowledge of timber markets is not as robust as my knowledge of ecology, but in general, I would say that’s true. Of course the Western United States is a vast area and there are small logging operations that might be able to find a profit for it. But in general, the answer is, I think, no.

Miller:  One of the arguments against thinning that I’ve seen, and then that you bring up in your recent article, is that it contributes to climate change by depleting carbon reserves. What does the science say about thinning with respect to climate change?

Shepherd:  There’s some underlying issues that lead up to that question. And the main thing is that wildfire severity is increasing at such a scale that our forests are in peril. And so the question, from our vantage point, living in 2023 is [whether] Western forests are in moderate peril or are they in catastrophic peril due to what’s going to happen with wildfire as climate change gets worse? And that question is really difficult to answer. But what scientists are grappling with right now is not a question of what the optimal forestry practices are to keep our forests healthy in the face of wildfire, but rather a question of how we make sure that we have lots of forests still in the United States in 200 years?

And so with the intersection of catastrophic wildfire and climate change, forests are at a really interesting crux because yes, cutting down mid-small and middle-sized trees does reduce the carbon sequestration that’s happening in Western forests. But they are at such a risk of annihilation by wildfire that we have to make them less flammable in order to save any of our forests and the incredibly important ecosystem that they are, at all.

Miller: You mentioned the other half of the fuel reduction conversation here, which is prescribed burns. and you noted that it’s actually important to see forest thinning and prescribed burns as working in tandem. How is it that they work together?

Shepherd:  When forests are thinned, you can take out tons and tons of woody material, but no matter what, there’s gonna be woody material left behind just by the process of thinning itself. And what’s left behind is typically the really really small branches and often the needles. But essentially the trees get broken in the process and nobody is raking up what’s left behind. And it dries out really quickly and sometimes it can be a little bit and sometimes it can be waist deep. So when that material is left on the forest floor, without being burned up by a prescribed fire, without being masticated under the right conditions, then sometimes it can be worse, in the short term, than leaving the forest alone. In the long term though if the forests aren’t thinned and subjected to prescribed fire properly, then the end result can pretty much be the same, which is death by wildfire.

Miller:  There does seem to be pretty general agreement within the scientific community that prescribed burns can be a really helpful tool in preventing really severe, crown to crown wildfires. Why aren’t they done more often?

Shepherd:  They’re extremely complicated to plan and execute, they’re controversial, they can be dangerous. Burn bosses occasionally lose control of them and then they destroy property. They can dump tons of smoke on communities that have people living in them that are vulnerable to smoke. And the window for being able to execute them safely is changing and closing in the face of climate change.

Miller:  Do you see any political changes or social changes on the horizon that would make these two tandem versions of fuels reduction more common, more likely?

Shepherd:  I don’t know. The I.R.A. that was passed last year had a line for over a billion dollars funding thinning projects in Western forests, so that’s part of it. But really I think people that are living in the Western United States have a pretty good handle on these issues that affect them. But I think it’s still fresh news to a lot of people in the Eastern United States who haven’t had a wildfire in their lives the way that life is like out west. And so I think for there to be a nationwide shift, there needs to be a nationwide cultural understanding of the danger that our Western forests are in and how crucial it is to use essentially three tools in tandem: thinning; prescribed fire which constitutes fuels reduction; and then also climate action.

Miller:  You spent, yourself, two years, if I’m not mistaken, fighting wildfires as a Forest Service Hotshot. How does that experience shape your own understanding of wildfire?

Shepherd:  Yes, I was a hotshot with the U. S. Forest Service for two summers. How it shapes my understanding of wildfire, I suppose, is just kind of a visceral understanding of how gargantuan the problem is, how much area our forest land covers in the Western United States, how near and dear it is to so many millions of people, and how our lives and communities are enmeshed with the forest.

Miller:  Emily Shepherd, thanks very much for joining us today.

Shepherd:  Thank you.

Miller:  Emily Shepard joined us to talk about forest thinning and prescribed burns. Emily wrote a recent article about this for High Country News.

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